Put on your finest evening wear, get out your opera glasses, settle into your private box and get ready to fall in love: the world of film loves a decadent night at the opera. And why wouldn’t it, with so many stirring arias and powerful stories of love and heartbreak?

We've picked out a few of our favourites, playing up to a few of opera's most fantastical stereotypes:

The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1994)

Black tie, white gloves, gold watches and the social scandals of the upper class, the opening opera scene of Martin Scorsese’s sumptuous The Age of Innocence has it all. The movie is set in 1870s New York when families of high society would go to the opera weekly to be seen in their private boxes and every opera season seemingly began with Faust.

Gounod's opera features themes of temptation, seduction and regret and these are reflected in The Age of Innocence, the story of a love triangle between Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), May Welland (Winona Ryder) and Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Scorsese’s camera lingers over the accoutrements of the rich setting up a milieu where wealth is flaunted and social hierarchies are reflected in seating arrangements. Here, opera glasses are as much for observing each other and the drama unfolding within the boxes as they are for watching the action on stage. Unlike New York in the 1870s, come to the opera today and you will find jeans are more common than formal attire and a seat in the box is open to all.

Life Is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997)

In this exquisite scene from Roberto Benigni’s Oscar-winning World War II film Life is Beautiful, Jacques Offenbach’s beautiful barcarolle ‘Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour’ from The Tales of Hoffmann is being performed on stage complete with a Venetian gondola and lavish costumes. While the audience in wartime greys and browns stare somewhat laconically at the stage, there’s one man in the audience looking the other way, far more captivated. Guido Orefice (Benigni) can’t take his eyes off a woman in one of the boxes and quietly invokes her to ‘look at me, princess’.

Next time you’re at the opera, take a good look around the auditorium. You never know, you too may find your future husband or wife. But be warned, talking to yourself as Guido does during a performance will not win you any friends.

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

When his talent-devoid wife Susan Alexander (Dorothy Comingore) can’t get a gig at the Metropolitan Opera, megalomaniac Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) builds an opera house for her. Widely considered one of the greatest films of all time, Citizen Kanesees Welles shows off his technical mastery to reveal the the hustle and bustle backstage before curtain up in two variations of his opera scene.

The first iteration includes the famous moment where the camera seems to ascend into the rafters, an effect being created by panning over a miniature then using wipes to blend into the stage curtains and wooden beam, giving the feeling of rising higher than would be possible in a real theatre.

The second version begins from Susan’s point of view, the shot reversed as she is left alone, dwarfed on stage – a singer well out of her depth. This scene reveals many aspects of opera stagecraft included a striking low-angled shot of the footlights and cutaways into the prompter's box (commonplace in Welles' time, but less common nowadays). Projecting his ambitions onto his hapless wife, Welles refuses to admit defeat, loudly continuing clapping after the rest of the audience has stopped.

Fifth Element (Luc Besson, 1997)

The Royal Opera House, but not quite as you know it as Luc Besson’s sends Covent Garden into orbit on a spaceship in his iconic sci-fi film The Fifth Element.

Black tie is the preferred attire, as demonstrated by our hero Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), although there are some more cosmic outfits in the audience including interesting headgear that would surely annoy those sitting behind.

Blue Diva Plavalaguna (voiced by Albanian soprano Inva Mula) performs ‘Il dolce suono’ from Lucia di Lammermoor as Dallas looks on spellbound, and humanoid Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) lurks in the wings. The calm is shattered however, when the spaceship/theatre is invaded by a troupe of alien baddies.

Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990)

No list of opera film scenes would be complete without the much-loved opera outing from Pretty Woman. Rich, suave Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) buys Vivian (Julia Roberts), a ‘hooker with a heart of gold’, a red evening gown and a necklace before whisking her off to see La traviata — a story which parallels her own.

Be warned, however. If like Edward and Vivian you decide to arrive late to a performance, you won’t be let in until a suitable break in the performance. And perhaps leave the long white gloves at home.

Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987)

The moon is a symbol of love in this romantic comedy about Sicilian-Americans living in Brooklyn. Moonstruck tells the story of Loretta (Cher) who is engaged to be married to Johnny (Danny Aiello). She, however, has inadvertently slept with his brother, Ronny (Nicholas Cage). Loretta and Ronny strike a deal: Ronny agrees to never see her again if she comes to the opera with him.

Following the usual silver screen trope, opera newcomer Loretta heads straight to the shop to buy a glamourous new gown for the occasion. Ronny is an opera lover so he has, of course, donned a tuxedo for his big night out at the Lincoln Center. Loretta is so moved by the romantic La bohème that she weeps and Ronny tenderly kisses her hand — proof if ever it were needed that opera can bring people together like nothing else.

Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster, 2008)

James Bond is no stranger to black tie, and it'd be a surprise if he turned up to the opera in anything else.

The spectacular setting of the floating stage at Bregenzer Festspiele in Austria attracts opera tourists from all over the world, and on 007's visit during Quantum of Solace, he's joined by a band of criminal masterminds plotting to take over Bolivia through a diabolical plot which would see them deprive the country of natural water.

Bond and the band of baddies are at Bregenz to see a striking production of Tosca, the set for which includes a giant eye watching over the audience, as Bond dashes about backstage doing his own surveillance. Diegetic sound is used to great effect as the famous Te Deum plays on while Bond pursues his enemies backstage. The action climaxes with a kitchen shootout, paralleling the violence unfolding on stage.

A highlight of this scene is a snooty zinger from an audience member as Quantum members hastily leave in the middle in the performance: ‘well Tosca is not for everyone’. Many opera fans would disagree, as this is one of the most-performed and loved of all operas.

These are just a few great opera scenes from the screen world. Do you have any other favourites?

Shocked by a ludicrous death? Amazed by an unexpected performance? Caught off-guard by a live broadcast while channel-flicking? Love it or hate it, there's something unforgettable about experiencing an opera for the first time.

We encouraged our Twitter followers to indulge in a moment of nostalgia and tell us how they got hooked on opera — or how they learnt to love it — be it live on the Covent Garden stage, or further afield. We were not disappointed.

@TheRoyalOpera my first experience was WOZZECK at 19. life-changing. decided in that moment that I'd become an opera scholar (& I did!)

Never seen an opera or a ballet before, or just want to learn more? Our pre-performance talks offer a chance to explore Royal Ballet and Royal Opera productions before the curtain rises.

Led by music and dance professionals, pre-performance talks provide insightful context to help you get more out of the performance you're about to see. Learn about the choreographer or composer, discover the vision behind a production, and delve deeper into the story with these engaging 30-minute talks.

You don't necessarily need to have a ticket for the stage performance to attend a pre-performance talk as they are separately ticketed events.

The role of Floria Tosca will now be sung by Odessan–born soprano Maria Guleghina on 2 and 5 February.

Maria Guleghina previously performed the role of Floria Tosca for The Royal Opera in 1997, 2000 and 2004 in the Franco Zeffirelli production.

Her other roles for The Royal Opera include Princess Fedora Romazov in Fedora, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier in concert and Odabella in Attila. She has recently sung Tosca for the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

Giacomo Puccini certainly understood how theatre — as well as music — works. The last five minutes of Act I of Tosca are a wonderful example of slow build-up leading to momentous climax. This final scene begins with quietly tolling bells and ends with the full chorus and orchestra – as the curtain falls the brass in particular loudly puts the seal on the opening act.

The whole of Act I takes place in a chapel within the church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. It is a setting primarily for intrigue and romance, as Cavaradossi helps the escape of a political prison, his lover Tosca becomes jealous, and Baron Scarpia exploits that jealousy for his own nefarious ends. The act concludes with a religious service, as a Te Deum is offered up in thanks for the news (later discovered to be inaccurate) that Napoleon’s invading army has been defeated.

First we hear two bells striking in a steady, even rhythm to announce the start of the service. The sound serves a specific and realistic purpose within the story and also sets the pattern for the music that follows. Scarpia and his henchman Spoletta have a brief exchange about having Tosca secretly followed, and the slow tolling of two alternating bass notes begins: F and B flat, a whole bar for each note in turn. This bass repeats through the whole final section for 56 bars, always with the low tones in the orchestra, bells and organ. It is a brooding and weighty effect that tells us serious ritual is underway.

As well as the church sounds of bells and organ there is the sound of the congregation, first muttering chanted Latin. (There is no real church service that fits the story, so Puccini made his own text of suitable-sounding phrases.) Puccini’s musical conclusion for celebrants, choir and congregation is their unaccompanied singing in unison of the line ‘Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur’ – ‘We acknowledge thee to be the Lord’.

However, these sounds of Heaven provide a backdrop to the sounds of something more hellish. Beyond the evocation of a church service is the sense of something frightening inexorably approaching – this is a march to the scaffold as well as a Te Deum. We hear a distant cannon firing at intervals, alerting the militia to the escape of the political prisoner we saw Cavaradossi helping earlier in the act. These booming explosions from outside disturb the service inside and add to the music’s weighty, rhythmic quality.

The focus of our attention is in fact not the religious service, but Scarpia in the chapel behind the altar. His solo voice cuts through the preparations and the start of the Te Deum as he voices his desires to possess Tosca by using her jealousy against her. His intentions come through in his climactic line about Cavaradossi and then Tosca: ‘One to the gallows, the other in my arms’.

Scarpia is so taken with his lust for Tosca and his sense of his own power that he utters something blasphemous in conclusion: ‘Tosca, you make me forget God!’ So when Scarpia joins with everyone else in that final unison line, he puts himself – not God – as the one in control of everything. The orchestral ending of the act is a thrilling statement in the brass of Scarpia’s theme, which began the whole opera.

From the start of the opera we have followed the competing forces of love, lust, power, politics and religion as they collide. The Act I concluding Te Deum is a magnificent compilation in action and music of them all.

When the impulsive painter Mario Cavaradossi agrees to help a fugitive escape, he sets in motion a chain of events that will lead to disaster for him, his lover Floria Tosca and the sadistic Scarpia, Chief of Police in Rome.

Heaven and Hell

Puccini vividly brings to life the very different worlds of the lovers Tosca and Cavaradossi and the evil Scarpia. In their duets in Act I and Act III and their arias Tosca and Cavaradossi sing in long flowing melodies that highlight the beauty of the human voice. Scarpia’s music, on the other hand, is dark and harsh, his vocal lines accompanied by dissonant harmonies in the orchestra. These two musical worlds combine strikingly and often chillingly throughout the opera.

Sacred and Secular

Jonathan Kent’s largely naturalistic production creates a sense of the conflict in the character of Tosca between passion and religion, and highlights Scarpia’s hypocritical piety. In Act I the statue of the Virgin contrasts to the sensual image of the half-naked Mary Magdalen painted by Cavaradossi. In Act II a massive statue of the righteous St Michael stands in ironic contrast to the brutality of Scarpia, who tortures Cavaradossi in his private room and nearly rapes Tosca. In Act III a vast carved wing shadows the lovers, as if an angel is watching their final moments.

From Melodrama to Operatic Triumph

Tosca is based on the play La Tosca, written by the French playwright Victorien Sardou for the great actress Sarah Bernhardt. Puccini and his librettists softened the melodrama of Sardou’s play, making Tosca a far more intelligent and likeable character, and the love between her and Cavaradossi more tender and passionate. As always with Puccini librettos, much superfluous information from the play was cut to make a tightly constructed operatic drama.

An Audience Favourite

Although Tosca has always had a mixed reception from other composers and critics – academic Joseph Kerman famously called it a ‘shabby little shocker’, and Mahler wouldn’t conduct it – audiences love it, and it has been performed more than 450 times at the Royal Opera House.

Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924) is arguably the world’s most popular opera composer – but it took several years for him to establish himself. Puccini was drawn to opera from his adolescence and began his first opera, Le villi, on his graduation from Milan Conservatory. Puccini’s score demonstrates many of the skills that led him to become Italy’s greatest 20th-century opera composer, including melodic originality, a wonderful dramatic instinct and rich orchestration; though the opera suffers from a somewhat stilted libretto. Puccini wrote Le villi for the Sonzogno Competition – it didn’t win, but its first public performance led Verdi’s publisher, Giulio Ricordi, to take Puccini on. Unfortunately, Puccini had much less success with his second opera, the melodramatic four-act opera Edgar (1889).

Rise to Fame: Manon Lescaut

Puccini’s third opera Manon Lescaut – the first where he selected the subject himself– was his first masterpiece. Puccini ingeniously adapted symphonic structures to the flow of the drama, but never compromised melodic beauty. Manon Lescaut demonstrates Puccini’s skill as a creator of memorable characters, particularly the heroine (the first in a line of complex, sympathetic and doomed women in Puccini operas). The opera had a difficult gestation, but its premiere on 1 February 1893 in the Teatro Regio, Turin, was a great triumph.

Three Masterpieces: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly

In 1893 Puccini began a fruitful collaboration with the librettists Giuseppe Giacosa (also a poet and playwright) and Luigi Illica, with whom he wrote La bohème(1896), Tosca (1900) and Madama Butterfly (1904). La bohème is set in 1830s Paris and tells the story of a group of penniless artists and their girlfriends. Puccini brought both the opera’s central love story and mid-19th-century Paris to life, with brilliantly varied orchestration, rapid shifts from comedy to tragedy, lyrical melodies and a moving use of reminiscence motifs. Although La bohème had a mixed reception at its premiere, it soon became one of the world’s most popular operas, and is currently the most performed opera at the Royal Opera House.

In contrast to Bohème’s delicate lyricism, Tosca is a fast-paced drama containing torture, murder and suicide. The music for Baron Scarpia, Puccini’s great operatic villain (introduced in the opening notes of the opera) is dark and terrifying – but Puccini also wrote passages of great melodic beauty for the lovers Cavaradossi and Tosca. Tosca’s daring harmonic language and subject matter have led it to be often hailed as ‘the first modern opera’.

For Madama Butterfly, Puccini moved to the exotic setting of Japan, telling the story of an idealistic Japanese geisha who marries and is abandoned by an American naval officer. He showed great tenderness in his depiction of Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly), one of his greatest creations. Puccini studied traditional Japanese music while composing the opera in order to create a vivid sense of place. Although Madama Butterfly had an unsuccessful premiere and Puccini revised the score several times, it soon became nearly as popular as La bohème and Tosca, and is among the ten most-performed operas in the world.

Following the death of Giacosa, Puccini’s productivity slowed as he struggled to find new librettists and subjects. He eventually found inspiration with La fanciulla del West (1910), set in California at the time of the Gold Rush. Fanciulla is one of Puccini’s most musically complex and symphonic works – although there is much melodic beauty there are very few arias as such, and the orchestra always plays a key role in the action. Again, Puccini creates an effective sense of place in each act, from the bustle of the saloon bar in Act I to the misty dawn in the Californian forest in Act III.

In contrast to the epic scale of La fanciulla del West, Puccini’s next opera, La rondine (1917), has a romantic and ironic plot. Puccini’s gifts as a melodist come to the fore in this opera, and he also makes playful use of various dance forms, including the waltz, the tango and the foxtrot. The opera had a difficult genesis: it was originally intended to have its premiere in Vienna, but World War I made this impossible as Italy and Austria were on opposite sides. La rondine was eventually staged in Monte Carlo in 1917. The opera’s delicately understated plot, and a general feeling in Italy that Puccini had been unpatriotic during World War I (which turned some of his countrymen against him) led to La rondine having a mixed reception: it was many years before it gained a permanent place in the repertory.

While he completed La rondine, Puccini was already working on his next, ambitious project. Il trittico(1918) consists of three one-act operas: a melodrama set on a barge on the Seine in early 20th-century Paris; the tragic story of a nun mourning the loss of her child; and a sparkling comedy about a clever trickster and a greedy Florentine family. In Il tabarro Puccini evokes the world of working class Paris, from the opening dreamy evocation of the Seine at evening to the use of popular song and the savagery of the final scene. In Suor Angelica each of the principal nuns (and the cruel Princess) have distinct personalities, and Puccini writes exquisite melodies for Suor Angelica, particularly in her lament ‘Senza mamma’. Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s only large-scale comedy and is brilliantly successful – particularly in the composer’s musical contrasting of the grasping Donati family, the cunning Schicchi and the ardent lovers Rinuccio and Lauretta, and in his witty orchestration.

Puccini’s fascination with the exotic emerges again in his final work, Turandot. In his score Puccini made use of several Chinese melodies (some acquired via a musical box); the opera also contains some of his most original orchestration and harmonic language, and sees Puccini making greater and more innovative use of the chorus than in his previous operas. This, coupled with the opera’s fairytale plot in which a resolute hero teaches a savage ‘ice princess’ how to love, makes Turandot one of Puccini’s most ambitious creations, and it is certainly his most organic integration of music and drama. When Puccini died he left the opera without a completed final scene for Act III. The world premiere, two years after the composer’s death, presented the work as Puccini left it. But a younger composer, Franco Alfano had been authorized to complete an ending from Puccini’s sketches and it quickly became standard in performances. Today, Turandot is one of the most admired of Puccini’s operas.

‘When I was younger, I thought Puccini was easy. Then when I grew up, I studied his scores and I said to myself, “Nicola, you were really stupid when you thought this about a great, talented and gifted and composer!”

‘Puccini is attractive because he speaks directly to our hearts’, he continues. ‘When I study at the piano, I can understand what is written technically, but how the sounds and orchestration of the instruments is combined is a mystery – it’s a miracle!’

‘What Puccini needs is that you breathe the music with him’, says Luisotti of how to approach the composer’s work as a conductor.